Scoop
by Garmonbozia
Summary: This morning, Kitty Reilly is working on a story about pigeons getting trampled on trains. By tonight, she'll have the exclusive she's been dreaming of. - No longer a one-shot, it seems... - - Now Complete
1. Chapter 1

Do you know what Kitty's working on? Seriously, because you'll never guess. You'd have to already know to ever have a clue what Kitty's working on. You could be reading it over her shoulder and still not be sure what exactly it is that she's working on right now. This is meant to be her great contribution to journalism, this is what's become of the scoop she used to dream of all through college, all through working her way up, through making endless cups of tea and proving herself on a few stories she had to scrabble for, fight tooth and nail and backstab for, all those terrible nights in terrible flats and the week at the end of every month where no matter how careful she was with her cash she'd always end up living on toast and strong black coffee and what's she working on? What's Kitty writing about?

The burning issue of pigeons wandering on to trains and being crushed underfoot. Squashed pigeons, that's Kitty's tale. Complete with quotes (to be cut, to never make the edit, doesn't know why she bothered to get them) from the cleaners who have to scrape the mess up off the floor.

A phone on the newsdesk rings and she doesn't even try to answer it. It's her editor who gets it and announces brightly, "_Leon_, hi!" Kitty keeps her eyes trained on her work, but stops typing, turns an ear towards the conversation. No idea why; it'll only depress her. Leon's down at the courts today. Again. Leon was here before her yesterday morning, and was sent to cover the break-in at the Tower of London. Things like that are always happening to Leon. And now he gets to follow the story through, this whole bloody 'Moriarty' business, _Leon_ gets to stick with it, _Leon_ gets to see it through to the end and keep reporting on it and it's not fair, and it's not fair, and it's not fair and...

Kitty gets up from her desk and leaves the office. She doesn't excuse herself or say anything. Not that she's being rude, no, nothing like that... Just that nobody asks. Nobody really pays that much attention to the fact that she's leaving the room. It's her name, she thinks, and she makes her way down through the building. She should have changed her name before she came here. _Kitty_. It's a name for a stripper or a barmaid or a trophy girlfriend. It's not a name for a serious journalist. It's her name, of course it is, her name that keeps anybody from taking her seriously.

That and the fact that she hasn't landed a decent story since she was at The Sun. Even that was just _Sun_-decent. Political sex-scandal. They might as well have hung a sign around her neck when they printed it, 'HACK'. 'HACK' and 'HACK' is all she'll ever be.

Right now? Kitty would _kill_ for a political sex scandal again. Better a hack than... Than just stood on the outside step, smoking and trying not to look like she's trying not to cry.

It's the same thing she did about a week ago. That time, there was a car sitting across the street. Jim was sat in the back, took one look at her and, "Bingo_. _Moran, we have a winner."

Moran reached over, picking up the camera from the passenger seat, and took a couple of quick snaps. Blandly, knowing a smart answer couldn't be far away, he asked, "How do you know she's even one of the journos?"

There was no smart answer. It was a stupid question, so Jim decided not to bother with an answer. He could have given Moran a whole list of things, gone on ten minutes or more, but it was just really obvious. The handbag, for instance; huge. Could take a laptop, two A4 folders and lunch, still have room for change of shoes. That was just one thing and it was enough. But he didn't answer. He was studying Kitty, this most important of women, without even knowing her name yet. Skinny, shaking Kitty smoking on the steps, so alone and so forgotten and so utterly perfect for his purposes. Caught up in this, he didn't even notice Moran calling him until the other man felt the need to shout. "What?!" he snapped.

"Sit back. If she sees you now-" Of course, Moran was absolutely right. It was all over if she saw him then. But he wanted to look at her. So pale, looking like an orphan, completely done for in the big nasty world of British journalism. And wasn't it nice, he thought to himself, to be doing the girl a service? He'll be making it so no one can ever forget her again. He saw her, and saw in her eyes the deep, brutal pain she was trying so hard to hide, and smiled for her. Little lost Kitty, about to land the scoop of this young century and not even knowing it. It was almost a full minute after Moran expressed his concern that Jim actually obliged and sat back. "So," the driver murmured, checking over the pictures he'd taken, "do you want to keep looking or...?"

"No. She's the one. Drive on." Still his eyes stayed on her, even as the car pulled away, until he couldn't turn his head any farther. Then, turning back, a thought struck him; "Oh, and remember and make  
sure the other fella, what's-his-name...?"

"Coxcroft... Leon Coxcroft."

"Aye, the cock, make sure and let him in on the Tower job. Just so he doesn't feel too put out when the golden goose turns out to be a failed kid's TV presenter." And this Jim thought of as an act of impossible benevolence, on his part. After all, they've been feeding Leon Coxcroft exclusive crime stories for years now. The cock has gotten fat enough off of them. Time to let somebody else have a little bit of fun.

But there's no car there, this week. In fact, there are no cars anywhere up and down the street. Now, Kitty's more than aware that there's a reason for this. There are road works nearby. People are avoiding those, not driving this way, not using the street for parking in fear of being blocked in. It's all perfectly logical. But her overall impression, as she looks around, is of grey, bleak loneliness, total isolation.

Matter of fact, the only sign of life she can see right at this moment is a wall-eyed pigeon waddling along, bobbing its empty little head to peck at bare tarmac. Bleeding idiot bird. "Do you want to borrow my Oyster card?" she mutters, as it pecks the step at her feet. Then stamps and sends it scattering, shedding feathers in its panic. Naturally, though, it's in that precise moment of cruelty that two PAs clack out from inside, glossy lips parting in shock at having to witness such barbarity. Kitty straightens fast, tries to smile like it's nothing. Then, for reasons she doesn't quite understand herself, mutters, "Sorry." The jury clack on by on patent heels, pert little arses grinding in tight skirts. Judgement? From these? From suicide-blondes who make the better part of their living by impressing their bosses, not with front, but with their fronts? Oh please...

God, she wishes she hadn't said 'sorry', not to those bitches.

She should have stayed in Eastbourne, like the rest of her family. Stayed in the little caf on the front and met someone nice and raised a couple of squalling brats in that lovely little seaside town but _no_, not Kitty. No, Kitty would go and learn to write shorthand and avoid professional bias and how not to report and then she'd go to the big city and become a star reporter at a major national newspaper and...

Compulsively, she lights another cigarette.

Across the street, behind the _To Let_ sign on the first floor, Moran is making tea in an abandoned office. He found the mugs in a cupboard, chipped and stained, but he's had worse. Two mugs. He carries one over to the woman at the window. She's confused; you don't have to be Jim to spot that she's confused. Looking back and forth between the photograph in her hand and the woman across the street with her brow furrowed and her lip curled as if to say, _Really_?

Moran takes a deep breath, "Problem, Dani love?"

Dani looks up at him, "That? Over there? The chain-smoking weakling? Was he sure? I mean, are you sure he was sure?"

"Oh, well, I'll tell you what, love; why don't we ring him and ask?" She bristles. No call for that sort of talk. Not when Moran knows she's already worried. Jim's in police custody this time, plain and simple. It's not that she doubts his ability to cope, just that she doesn't _like_ the idea. She goes back to looking out the window, to smoking her own cigarette. Her third, actually. Maybe she shouldn't be pulling anybody up on their chain-smoking, not today anyway. In between drags she studies her fingernails, until Moran can't watch her anymore and says, "Sorry."

"No, it's alright."

"I'm sure he's getting along fine."

She nods. Shaky at first, and then more definite. "Yeah. Of course he is. And he will be, won't he, so long as we keep things smooth out here?"

He reassures her. Sits by her at the window, watches her watch Kitty as she places a call to the newsdesk. They've had a week to research her. There's nothing they don't know. Still, the best way to get to any journalist has been the same since the dawn of time; call up, ask for her by name, leave a number. Never identify yourself. Never leave a message of any kind. Sound urgent.

And then, for Moran and Danielle, it's just a matter of waiting. Keeping things smooth. After a while, trying to sound like she doesn't care, Danielle says, "Are you worried? About Jim, I mean." And she doesn't mean about police custody either. About lately. About everything that's going on (or seems to be; God knows he tells them nothing anymore) in the man's head.

Moran lies, says "No."

Before she can pursue the question any farther, Danielle's phone rings. She answers, suddenly as someone who is breathless and rushed and panicked, "Hello? Oh, Ms Reilly, thank goodness..."

"Sorry," Kitty murmurs, "but who am I speaking to?" In her mind she is begging, bargaining with God and all the angels, please let this be an absolute stranger calling my number with that desperation on her voice.

"Oh," the stranger replies, "You don't know me." Silently, Kitty punches the air, mouths her thank-you up to the heavenly host. Then the stranger continues, "I need to speak to you about the Moriarty case."

And just like that, everything falls apart. Kitty rages. Swallows down hot bile and says in clipped, grudging syllables, "I'm afraid I'll have to refer you to my colleague who is covering that story." She could cry again. She could slip right back out for another smoke, out where the cold legitimizes her snivelling.

"No."

The voice is adamant, unequivocal. Just that, quite simply, 'No'. No, I will _not_ be referred to your colleague and how dare you try and fob me off. There's strength beneath the panic. Kitty stops thinking the word 'stranger' and thinks the word 'source'.

"No, Ms Reilly," the source says, "I want you. Coxcroft can't be trusted, he's in bed with..."

"How do you know his name? I never said that name."

"I know a lot of names. I know Leon Coxcroft's, and I know James Moriarty's and I know Sherlock Holmes'."

"_Holmes_?!" Kitty's echo is too loud. She's getting looks from all around the room, sneaky and sidelong, and people stop typing to listen to her for once. Cautiously she turns her chair away from the desk, curls up quietly with the phone. "What's he got to do with this?"

"Do you know Richard Brooke's name, Miss Reilly?"

Unashamed, "No. Should I?"

And then the source utters words every journalist longs to hear. The sentence itself is innocuous, but so loaded with meaning and fear. The promise of an exclusive, and of danger, a real scoop, a name-maker. And this one promises to take on that idiot Leon too, and tear apart the biggest story in the country today. Perfection. The source says, "I'm really not comfortable discussing this over the phone."

Kitty's hands, for the first time in long, uneasy days, stop shaking.


	2. Chapter 2

Days have passed, and Kitty still sometimes stops and wonders if that meeting really happened. She's never met a source like that; incredible, the sort of thing every journalist dreams of. A beautiful vulnerable woman, very photogenic if she can ever be convinced to go on record, burdened with years of impossible guilt and only looking to throw it away, to make amends in the world by telling the truth, and with all the hard evidence a responsible journalist could ever want. More than enough for a hack. Time and experience and the embittered talk around the office had taught her that such perfectly distraught fonts didn't exist.

But they do, and Kitty's got one. She'll catch it on the rasp of her cigarette lighter, that sensation of uncertainty, like she might have just imagined it. And on the first draw she'll know that's not true, and she breathes it deep and smiles.

The rest of the _hacks_ don't understand it. They think she's lost her mind, or at best that she's found a better position at a worse newspaper. Assistant deputy sub-editor for features at the Sport, something like that. Which is fine. Let them think. As of this evening she'll be able to bring it to the boss, and tell him everything with certainty and support. About Leon Coxcroft and Sherlock Holmes, about the woman who works for the lawyers and has all those _lovely_ documents Kitty's photocopied, about poor, used Richard Brooke. Today, all her problems end. She will no longer be depending on squashed pigeons to pay the rent.

There could be a TV job after this, y'know... Not as the talent, maybe just writing copy. Channel Four news. She could do that. The bit before The Simpsons, like a teaser trailer, John Snow sitting on his desk and telling the headlines very quickly? Kitty could write that, no problem.

But there is one more thing she must do first. That's why she had to borrow the deerstalker. Michelle in Graphics has a little sister who just recently switched her obsession from the fictional detectives of Las Vegas to a real one closer to home, so it wasn't too hard to get hold of the fanclub gear. And yes, she feels ridiculous, but she _has_ to know. A lie that size, some part of it has to be true, doesn't it? Kitty prays; the story will read so much more earth-shattering if there's some solid fact for people to hold on to. She can't just pull the rug out from under the avid followers of the Sunday Scoop, now, can she?

So she climbs the steps of court (changing her prayers briefly to ones designed to keep Leon far, far away from her) with her chin held high and remembering she's here purely as a journalist and if that requires, just this once, a truly silly disguise, then that's quite alright.

But as Kitty enters the building, on the stairs inside, her _source_ turns very quickly in the other direction. Of course, Danielle's part of the story now, so it hardly matters if she's seen. She just feels the Judas she's playing would react badly to meeting Pilate in public. But the little noise of shock and distaste that escapes her is totally real. After all, she's only supposed to be here to keep an eye on Watson, to watch the rest of the public gallery for unfriendlies, to see Jim, as a potential back-up in case anything goes wrong, so Holmes will see her from the stand... Alright, for a lot of reasons, but she's got enough on her plate without worrying about the ginger bint then, hasn't she?

Quickly, irritably, phones up Moran, "Why is Kitty at court in tweeds and one of those hats?"

"No idea."

"You're supposed to be keeping an eye."

"No, love, you misunderstand; I'm watching her, I've seen it all happen, I just have no idea."

"I told Jim we should have had her phone bugged," Danielle mutters. Then, sullenly imitating, "_Nah, love, never work. She's a journo, they know all about it. Have it spotted in seconds_, would she bugger... Woman's an idiot."

"Just out of interest, Dani, are you _anywhere_ where somebody might hear you talking like that? I'm only saying, it's Little Brother's big day so the place is probably crawling with Mycroft's lot."

Sighing, Danielle sees them starting to close the doors on the trial and rushes up to the gap, the last one in. She risks a glance over her shoulder, even as it's tapped for her to turn off her mobile. What she sees in the hallway below, she whispers to Moran, "You're absolutely right, Seb. Consider me calmed." Because, with not a small glow of pride warming her heart, she's just watched Miss Reilly follow Sherlock into the gents. It settles her. The doors shut and she looks across the courtroom, first at the jury, then the defendant. Never once does he look back. She winks anyway, and lives out the boredom of the opening rituals dreaming of what might be going on downstairs.

Getting it _all_ wrong, of course.

Kitty's never considered herself much of an actress. She was supposed to be Juliet once, playing the balcony scene in a sort of school's Shakespeare medley, but Romeo was struck down with measles and she had to go into the Sleeping Draught soliloquy with one day to learn and rehearse it. Left the drama club, hasn't set foot on a stage since.

But so far, she feels like she's doing pretty well. Dropping her handbag was a nice touch. Until then she had no idea how to play it but then, when she saw his eyes run her over in the mirror, when she had both hands suddenly and wondrously free... Holmes, she notes, is terse, and so far seems to speak only one or two words at a time. But he takes a step forward and so does she. Kitty's never felt so fearless, not in all her career. Chasing that politician down the street with a tape recorder her heart was pounding, and nothing to do with running in heels. But something of Holmes' calm is infectious; he doesn't know she's onto him, and all his stinking little secrets. All Kitty's strength and power comes from that, and it lifts up the marker between them saying, "Sign my shirt, would you?"

He doesn't look comfortable. Maybe that's why he starts talking? (Actually, as introspection goes, that's quite good, and she makes a mental note of it for later.) "There are two types of fans."

"Oh?"

"Catch-me-before-I-kill-again, Type A."

"Uh-huh. What's Type B?"

"Your bedroom's just a taxi ride away."

Or maybe she read him wrong. Maybe uncomfortable is the last thing he is. He just wants to take the initiative with her. Well, fine. Let him. Kitty only came here to see if he could look through her, the way he claims to, the way that leaves everybody so impressed all the time. If there was any real intelligence here at all. But if there's not she might as well get her information whatever way it wants to come...

"Guess which one I am."

"Neither."

Oh. "Really?"

"No, you're not a fan at all." Oh God, he knows. She might have everything on him, but he knows that, and the woman from the lawyers' never mentioned if that would place her in any danger. Her resolve, her unflinching bravery, falters, but only for a moment. No, she tells herself, these are Crown courts, full of police and bailiffs and security and she's perfectly safe. If he goes for her it's only a sign of his guilt.

There was a photographer at her old paper who took on the big story with her. He told her once that every good pap goes to his bed at night, kneels at the side of it, crosses himself and asks God if please, please, please tomorrow a public figure will punch him. Smash up his camera. Open a car door on him. Shove him in a gutter. They would, each and every, gladly be hospitalized, because that's a lifetime of scandal and settlements.

So she listens as Holmes tries to dissect her, tries to shock her with everything he knows and can spot, talking about pressure marks and typing and deadlines. Telling her he knows exactly what she is. "Is that it?" she says. To unnerve him, of course. Nothing to do with her own curiosity getting the better or her or anything like that. Just to be unimpressed, to push him.

"There's a smudge of ink on your wrist and a bulge in your left jacket pocket."

"Bit of a giveaway?"

"The smudge is deliberate. It's to see if I'm as good as they say I am." Kitty can't decide if his decision to sniff it is to unnerve her right back or purely investigative – "Oil-based, used in newspaper print. But drawn on with an index finger, your finger, journalist. Unlikely you get your hands dirty at the press. You put that there to test me."

Oh, dear God, she has to think quickly, but all her energy's gone in keeping the panic off her face keeping the desperate, whirling noise of the cogs sufficiently muffled. Think, dammit, think, woman; what's safe? What's always safe?

Deny everything. She knows nothing.

"Wow, I'm liking you."

"You mean I'd make a great feature. _Sherlock Holmes, the man beneath the hat_."

And now that he mentions it, albeit in quite the darkest sort of sarcasm she might ever have heard (and remember she inhabits a newsroom)... Newly thoughtful, "Kitty. Reilly." Then remembers she's still wearing that ridiculous hat and pulls it off before adding, "Pleased to meet you."

"No." There's not even enough of a pause there for her confusion to reach her face; he already knew it was coming, "I'm just saving you the trouble asking. No, I won't give you an interview, no, I don't want the money." And it's at this that he tries to walk away from her, trying to be the stronger of the two. There's hate bearing down on him though, and something in Kitty recognizes that she put it there, and that she has gained some control by that.

She's not letting him leave. No. Not, at least, without seeing her strength, without giving him a chance to respect something of her. Chasing, she searches her notes and knowledge for the right button to press, the hurtful one, the one she hopes will change things. "You and John Watson. Just platonic?" Grabs the handle of the door harder than he does and shoves it closed, "Can I put you down for a no there, as well?" Her gambit has brought them close again, toe-to-toe. _Use_ it, she tells herself, and tries to believe it's only the difference in their heights that makes him look at her down the length of his nose. "There's all sorts of gossip in the press about you. Sooner or later you're going to need someone on your side."

God, she's glad she started carrying her cards again. She had fifty made when she first got into the business and, after a while, just gave up. After having to write down her home number for the source the other day she picked a few up, and eases one of her pocket as she speaks, brings it up to him.

Doing very well again. Things were shaky, for a bit, but she feels like she's actually alright here. After all, one day's not very long at all to have to learn and dramatize a completely solo piece of work. You can only expect so much of yourself and this, Kitty feels, is just about it.

He doesn't take the card. But what sort of reporter, not a hack, would give up now? She stops even looking for eye contact, like it's all just secondary, and watches the pocket she pushes it into. "Someone to set the record straight."

Is there, even possibly, a hint of interest? "You think you're the girl for that job, do you?"

"I'm smart." Well, she got this far, didn't she? "And you can trust me." And everybody tells a little white one, from time to time... "Totally."

"Smart, okay. Investigative journalist. Good. Well, look at me and tell me what you see." Something about the step he takes away from her is more intimate, more likely to scar, than all the closeness that went before. "If you're that skilful you don't need an interview. You can just _read_ what you need." Something about him, something not on the surface but not much beneath it, has changed. Turned cold. What had been distaste, Kitty watches turning into cruelty. Maybe that's not the word she'd give it, precisely, but in their hearts, they both know what it is. "No?" he says, when she's got no answer to give him, "Okay. My turn."

She doesn't want to. She wants to leave. It's not as if she needs him. And has it ever happened to him, that someone saw him appraise them like meat and didn't stay to listen, perfectly content with their quiet, harmless, everyday illusions, neither knowing or caring what truth was written? No, probably not; Kitty neither needs or wants it, and she can't move either.

"I look at you and I see someone who's still waiting for their first big scoop so their editor will notice them-" That's just the beginning of it. After that she can only stand there and listen as he picks over those things she never thought could show, grabbing the oldest and most ragged of a thousand hangnails from all down her life and tearing them off. The speed, the efficiency, somehow it's more hurtful. If he could have laughed and spit at her and tried to lend some wit to it... But he doesn't. No, he just tells her that her hunger, the only drive she's ever had, a force she's never failed to find pride in, disgusts him. 'Not smart', he says, the words blurry in the wake of that sting, 'Definitely not trustworthy.'

No, well, she always knew that was a lie...

"But I'll give you a quote, if you like." She hardly feels his hand slide the Dictaphone from her pocket, staring past him into dead space. "Three little words." One more time, Kitty tries. She tries to show some resolve, some self-possession, tries to be immune to him. But she just finds her eyes travelling over the sharpness of his face. Thinking stupidly, bovine, _He's all corners_, as he tells her on record, "You – _repel – _me."

And leaves her there then, struggling. Leaves her, more than anything, trying to feel something honest and comforting. But it's as if he's left her with nothing inside herself, no reserve or reality to fall back on, just torn open and spread out flat so there's nothing to...

No, there's something. Something concrete, very, very real. Something for Kitty to hold on to. She goes and gets her bag from the floor, excavates her phone from under notes and flat pumps and her _bloody_ packed lunch (no doubt he would have had the time of his life with that) and calls the source. The woman has her phone off, and it goes straight to answer. Kitty can't hang up, though, has to leave a message, has to hear the sound of her own voice here and now and know she still exists. She addresses her own reflection in the mirror, tugging her hair out of the _stupid_ pigtails.

"I'm going to need to see everything you can possibly get for me. He is the most dangerous kind of fraud – it's irresponsible to hold this off any longer than we have to. I'm ready to explode it; all I need is your co-operation and I know I have that. Please call back, urgently."

* * *

[A/N - Many thanks to CSRoche and HayleyC - if they hadn't asked for more on this I probably wouldn't have even thought of it. This is my favourite parallel-to-the-show scene I've ever done and it wouldn't have happened without them. Much love you guys, maybe a little more to come (can't really resist the scene where Rich walks in while the boys are at Kitty's...)]


	3. Chapter 3

It's still with Kitty. That sting, that humiliation, days later, it's still with her. It's like grazed skin; impossible to avoid and it will not heal. It is triggered by everything and it is eternally painful. She threw out that twice hemmed skirt. Cut it to bloody ribbons first, because why should she ever wear it again, and why even give it to charity and fob it off on some other poor soul to have a twice-hemmed second-hand supposedly-good skirt? If anybody needs for her semi-formal she's done for until payday, but that just didn't seem important, after the courtroom.

The source called her back. Now that she's preparing the eventual article, finally, she's thinking in detail. The woman's name is Grace Kerr, she's a legal secretary with the firm of Darcy, Arthur and Phelps. A small firm that's been kept in the three families for over a hundred years, they keep a low profile and handle, it seems, only the most illustrious clients, and some really very nasty cases.

Including that of Richard Brooke, and the very unusual job offer brought to him two years ago.

It's all proven. While the man was still in custody she had everything she needed. Contracts and matched signatures and binding legal paperwork. Could have gone ahead. Actually, there were times she could hardly contain herself, when she wanted to, didn't know why she wasn't doing it. After the court (so many things, now, begin with the words 'after the court') she was glad. After the court it wasn't enough. She started that very afternoon, wheedling and arguing and bribing, when she met Kerr.

"But I don't understand," said the secretary over coffees. "I've given you everything. If I'd brought it to the police it would be done by n-"

"No, no, you don't need to do that. Let's not talk about them. You and I both know the way these things get buried, don't we?" A threat, did that sound like a threat? Kitty backed it up with an attempt at a smile, tried to turn it into solidarity. Needn't have worried. The woman was unfazed. Never, really, seems to get all that fazed.

"All I'm saying, Rich-" The name choked her, and she corrected herself, "_Mr Brooke _is in a very vulnerable position right now and-"

"And he knows I'm trying to help him. You can get him to talk to me." Eye contact. Years of training abandoned her and all she knew how to do was make eye contact and lean in and try and look earnest.

"You didn't need him last week, what's changed?"

'Miss Kerr' for the record, got pulled up on that. When next she met poor vulnerable Mr Brooke he went through her for a shortcut, over putting pressure on _his_ journalist, tormenting _his_ journalist. Kitty's torments were to be his, all his. Miss Kerr rolled her eyes and let him rant. Six weeks in custody hadn't much agreed with him. Never bothered trying to explain to him, that knowing Kitty had met with Sherlock and knowing both parties reasonably well, there was only one word she wanted to hear _his_ bloody journalist use.

One that hung on Kitty's lips and she was only just able to deny it. Personal. It needs to be personal. Holmes made it personal and her pain is personal and now she wants it all to be very, very personal. Kitty wants to expose nerves and play them with razors. But she couldn't exactly admit all that out loud, could she? She's not the kind of person. Feelings like that are very strange to her, and the words, the images that lend themselves to her shame and her hate, they make her afraid.

Brooke and Kerr and Moran, who has no spare name and was only driving the car, each of them was thinking the same word, when Kerr explained the reactions. In derision or distaste, simply, _Amateur_.

Of course, _his_ journalist doesn't know that. Doesn't even know she's _his_. In fact, now that the time has come, now that today's the day, now that the wait is finally over, Kitty is rather looking forward to thinking of _him_ as _hers_. Rich is alright with that. She can think what she pleases. You wouldn't know it to look at him, though.

He looks beaten. He looks exhausted. Most importantly, he looks around him. Everywhere, into every corner. It's a tiny caf on a tiny side-street full of tiny lives and every single one of them, he looks as though they might suddenly turn and shoot him. And as much as she might feel for him, Kitty is only fighting to keep the smile off her face, and she knows her eyes are smiling above it all. Think of anything, she tells herself. Think of war orphans and drowned kittens and oil-spills. Think of anything except how _fabulous_ he is.

For the first time since the initial phone call, Miss Kerr is unwelcome. In the way. Kitty wants her to leave now. She's delivered all the evidence and now Brooke himself; her conscience is clear. It's all over, we're done here, Miss Kerr can just drop him off and leave now.

She doesn't, she sits down. Kitty can't think how to phrase all these things that she's thinking, so she doesn't say them. Besides, it doesn't matter. She's getting what she asked for, and stands out of the booth to greet it.

Brooke looks at her outstretched hand like she might scratch him. In the end, he takes it, but briefly, and with no grip at all. And then, before uttering a single word to her, turns to Kerr and says, "Gracie, I don't know if I like this."

This is _exactly_ what Kitty was worried about; this bloody bitch will have him warned about the way he talks to journalists and about going too public and all the other things that plague her nightmares now that she's stopped dreaming. The dream of the scoop turned into the dream of the fame has turned into the nightmare of all the things that could still go wrong and _this_ is one of them, and here it's happening from the very first step and she can't even think what to say and _damn_ but… "Give her a chance." Oh. Alright, Miss Kerr can stay. "She's on your side."

Kitty feels Brooke run his eyes over her. _Searching_. Not seeing everything like Holmes did, not trying to strip her back. He's looking for something to trust. All she has to do is fit the bill.

Something decides him, and he slides into the booth. Tight to the corner, turned so that he can watch the door, chin tucked in. Again, Kitty has to make her eyes stop smiling. "I understand," she begins, "how difficult this has to be for you. Especially after everything you've been through lately."

"Oh, don't worry-" His voice is bitter, and less hollow as hollowed-out, as though someone's done it all to him. "I was well reimbursed." Shaking his head, he looks at his folded hands, "Don't get me wrong, it's not about the money. It was, in the beginning, obviously it was, but it's just got to a point, where… It's not about the money, anymore."

"You don't have to justify yourself to me," Kitty tells him. She understands, or so she thinks, all too well. Once you've met Holmes and he's spat you back out again, it's not about the money anymore.

But won't the money be _nice_…

While she dreams, Kerr is explaining, "Miss Reilly already knows just about everything. The way we agreed. She just wanted to meet you for herself-"

"But I don't get that," he hisses, as if it's confidential, just the two of them on that side of the booth and Kitty can't hear. "Why me, what does anybody need me for? You said, Gracie, you _said_-"

Gracie raises the eyebrow farthest from Reilly; _Really? Really, you're going to shout at me for that and then come in and rip the whole thing off, after me setting it up, really?_ He reads her perfectly and tries to stop his eyes smiling. Then he can't, too pleased to revel in the irony of a whole table full of people all trying not to give themselves away. Reilly's safe. He knows she's safe. She's so taken with the glamour of the whole thing she'd probably only try harder if she knew it was a scam. Poor Kitty, so boring and _so_ bored; she's never even been this close to a _fraud_ before, never mind a real story. She can work her way up to real stories, once he makes her name.

Kerr sees him struggling not to laugh and presses her heel down on his foot until it stops. A service she's having to perform more and more frequently lately. When Kitty goes into her spiel she kills the time wondering how many times it happened in prison, that laughter. The harsh, broken barking he passes off for laughter these days, anyway. She's happy to crush it, like a cigarette butt, any opportunity she has.

Meanwhile, of course, Kitty is explaining herself. "I need you because you've been hurt."

"Oh, human interest," Brooke mutters, nodding.

"Not at all. But it's because you just jump to that. Because this has made you so scared, and so cynical, and these crimes he's put together have done that to so many people. I know; I met him." And needs to stop mentioning it. Or is that the first time she's mentioned it? Is it just so consistently on her mind that she can't even tell what's in her head and what she says out loud? "I want the story as _you_ know it. You're the victim here and people are going to see that."

A breath, the ghost of a dearly departed laugh. Kitty doesn't know who, if anybody, he's speaking to, "She talks a good line, anyway."

Earnestly, she leans in. Searches for eye contact. Gets a bit annoyed when it's not forthcoming. "It's more than just talk." _No_, he thinks, _it's first-year body language too_. His shoulders shake once before the stiletto presses harder into the groove between bones in his foot and he almost winces. "It's so much more than that. I'll admit, it was about the money for me too." He nods, bites his lip. "Yeah, you understand that alright. Of course you do. But this is different. This isn't a scoop, it's a service."

The secretary, excluded from their little bond, feels safe to roll her eyes, slumping momentarily to lean her face on her fist. To think she was waiting idly in the courtroom gallery when there was apparently a public _flaying_ going on in that men's room… Maybe it'll toughen the little sap up a bit. She'll need it, dreaming of 'senior crime staff writer' and 'Leon Coxcroft's boss'. Ought to get over it. It takes a very special sort of person to stand up under Holmes' scrutiny and Kitty's just not it.

But then again, her charge, sweet, vulnerable Rich, who's been through so much and only wants to make it right, he looks as though this is all exactly what he wants to hear, so maybe she's missing something. After all, torturing Kitty was to be his sworn duty. Maybe he meant for this to happen. Purposefully picked one who would crumble the moment Sherlock turned it on.

All he's ever done, everything they've come through, the stuff he was recently _arrested_ for, sometimes his cruelty can still shock her

He allows too much of his satisfaction to come across, though. Catches himself and reins it in. It had made him lean in, matching her calculated body language like any old shill. Like he was _falling_ for it. Can't have her thinking so little of him, now, can he? No, he falls away from her, slumping back into his corner. It's all consistent with the act, naturally. He wouldn't do it otherwise. And yet his caretaker, that bright woman from the front desk at the lawyer's office, the one who was able to tell when it was all getting too much for him, shoots him a sharp, piercing glare.

Less than half a second, it lasts. _What the hell are you doing?_ she asks. _Time to be bought, Richard_.

He moves his foot from under hers and puts it down on top. Hard. It's a danger with Kitty at the table, because he means to cause pain. It's up to Miss Kerr to hide that effectively. But he grinds his foot down, keeps doing so even when he looks back to his journalist. His heel doesn't push in the same spirit as Kerr's did. She did it to help him. A service, if you will. He does it because she's questioning him, wrongly, and must be chided for it or she'll never learn. A punishment.

_Same dif, really,_ he thinks to himself. Working very hard to control his own laughter this time, _Service, punishment, po-_tay_-to-po-_tah_-to, eh Kitty?_

Kitty is as oblivious as he ever could have wanted. He tells her, "You don't understand. The network this man has… It's global. And it's evil. If my name appears anywhere, if _I_ appear anywhere-"

"Once it's published? I wouldn't worry. There's nothing they can do to you once the world knows what he is."

"That's not what I'm worried about. Miss Reilly-"

"Kitty."

"_Kitty_. I won't make it as far as publication. And then your source you said you had is gone. I won't even be dead, because he knows that, he knows that dead is just too _good_, but…"

Kerr looks round at him. She says, "I'm doing my best, Rich." She's taken him in, since the trial. She told Kitty that when they met before. Because the press were unbearable. They were everywhere, made his life unlivable. And that _name_… Kerr could hardly bring herself to talk about it, but from what Kitty could gather, Brooke had difficulty putting up with a hundred voices behind microphones and flashbulbs and all of them baying for 'Moriarty'. And yet, in the here and now, she gets the feeling they're talking about something more. Certainly something passes between them. Kerr speaks, doing her best, and there's a moment, a shared glance. Kerr stops grimacing, sits straighter, as though a physical weight had been lifted from her.

And flexes her bruised foot under the table.

Kitty, slowly, says, "I have an idea."

It's not _quite_ true. She's still having it, letting it dawn on her, letting the details fall into place. Brooke sees it and his mind starts racing for excuses. Kerr sees it and tries to stop her eyes from smiling. She's the one who prompts Kitty, "Go on?" Under the table that crushing pressure comes back, but she doesn't care. Her foot's already damaged, and her shoe destroyed. The shoes, she'll charge to him. The foot, he might be paying for soon enough.

"Well," Kitty goes on, and oh God, what is she doing? What part of her mind decided this was a good idea? And yet she keeps talking, as though logic and judgement are overriding all her reservations, and the offer follows effortlessly, sounding more and more like the most sensible thing in the world. "Well, I'm not connected. No offence, Miss Kerr, but you're _close_. You're a part of it. And I'm not. Mr Brooke-"

"Rich."

"_Rich_. You wouldn't have come here unless you were sure you weren't followed. They know nothing about me."

For the first time since he walked in here, Rich's distress takes the acrid, ozone tang of genuine fear. He can taste it in his back teeth, and when he tries to think, shutting his eyes, running a hand through his hair, all he sees is the dark behind his eyelids. No exit. He shoots one begging glance at Grace Kerr, but it's hopeless. The bridges there are well and truly burnt. He'll _kill_ her afterward, yeah, but she's not looking any farther ahead than her petty vengeance.

Prolonging his agonies, "What're you saying?"

"I'll hide you. Just until the weekend, just until the story. After that, it's like I said. You're safe once you're public."

"I couldn't put you in that sort of danger," he tries, a stab in the dark, a whiskey chaser in the Last Chance saloon, oh, God, this is actually happening to him, isn't it…

"I know what I'm doing," Kitty says, with a reassuring smile.

And every member of the party thinks, in perfect unison, and with the same regrets, _You really don't_.


	4. Chapter 4

As it's turned out, Kitty quite likes Rich. Likes having him around. She blushed when she first brought him home; he took one look around, at the collection of hotel-room style landscapes on one wall, on the old trunk that serves as her coffee table, upstairs into the floral gloom of her bedroom and said, "So you live alone then." He said it with no great judgement or distaste, but she blushed anyway. But now it's been a few days, and she's found it… _pleasant_. Not special, nothing to shout about, but just nice. Nice to have him in the car with her.

The editor, you see, had wanted to meet him. After a little coaxing, he came round. It took a lot less coaxing to get Leon Coxcroft away from his desk and out the back, onto the service stairs, to watch her sneak him in. Not that Kitty's a _cruel_ person. Not that she takes a _lot_ of pleasure in other people's pain. But it's been done to her so much and so often she just couldn't wait to rub Leon's nose in it. Here he was, the man who was meant to be his prize after the Tower Hill caper, and the only one he trusts in all the world is _her_.

It's left her a happiness that cuts through all her exhaustion. He sees it too, and smiles over from the passenger seat. "Long day."

"Little bit," she smiles back.

"Drop me off at the shop, I'll bring coffee in."

"You don't have to," she says, but only politely. He brings her round fairly quickly. Bites down on the urge to snap at her about gift-horses, about this silly British tradition of refusal. He's been biting down on a lot of things the last four days and eight hours approximately. An old habit of grinding his teeth has resurfaced. A _very_ old habit; he was on trial and never felt the urge to grind his bloody teeth. So old he'd forgotten he ever used to do it. But this week… Anyway, 'no' isn't an answer. Just a couple of minutes ago he got a text through from Moran saying Holmes was at Kitty's. Needs to go and have a chat about his personal security before he can go round there.

He is, however, quite looking forward to going round there.

Kitty, of course, knows none of this. All she knows is that her last houseguest, an old friend from uni, went through the flat in much the same manner a plague of locusts might, left nothing, and certainly didn't feel the need to replace anything in the aftermath. She is, as previously mentioned, quite enjoying Rich's quiet, affable company. And so she drops him off, and drives on round the corner. Home. On the curb, breathing out the long day, thinking of tomorrow's papers, she thinks simply, _Home_.

Naturally, if tomorrow's papers go well, she'll be upgrading it to a much better home, but for tonight, it'll do.

But in the hall, fishing for her keys, she realizes she won't need them. The door is open. The lock, though not broken, not kicked in, has been jammed open and won't close properly anymore. On a heartbeat, everything changes. Adrenaline kicks in and pushes everything to a higher, faster gear. Her instant thought is 'burglars'. There was a spate around here a couple of months ago and she dodged the bullet by a house or two but…

But that's ridiculous. There's really only one option, isn't there? Fear and trepidation turn weak. Excitement, that's what makes sense to her now.

Still, what she sees when she flips the light on… She's not sure she ever could have been expecting this.

Holmes obviously expects to be the big surprise. But she's still staring at the handcuffs between him and John Watson, frankly, and hardly hears whatever quip he offers by way of introduction. "Wh… What are you _doing_ here?" she manages, eventually. He stands for a moment from the sofa, swooping so suddenly close and freezes and can do nothing. With the same carelessness and ownership with which he lifted her hand at the court, he pulls one of the grips from her hair.

"Borrowing this."

"Right," she mumbles.

He sits back down, sets about bending the end of the pin, freeing himself. For now, it seems, he's content to ignore her. And Kitty's content, crossing the room, sitting down, to take this little break. Her mind is racing; Rich is coming back. She needs to get rid of Holmes or she needs to warn him. But she can feel her heart beat against her ribs, hear it rushing in her ears, and it's very distracting. She's thinking, but only in circles, never getting anywhere. More than searching for solutions, she finds herself staring at Holmes, the focused, diligent way he goes about picking the lock. Like… like a little _boy_…

To hell with him. She has thought those words before she really understands them, but quickly comes to terms. To hell with him. After everything he said to her, how he made her feel, what he's done to Rich and to so many people with his childish little scam. To hell with him. What can he do, really? Kitty stops thinking, stops even trying to. Disdain wants to rule, and she hands over all control to the exasperation in her rapidly settling heart.

The cuffs pop open. A little flash of satisfaction on his face. A little flare in her smouldering hate. "Congratulations," he says, now that he's finally ready to speak to her. "The truth about Sherlock Holmes. The scoop that everybody wanted and you've got it; _bravo_."

She shrugs, "I gave you your opportunity. I wanted to be on your side, remember?" It's maybe not exactly, one-hundred-per-cent faithful a report. It's just that she's very aware of John Watson. The way he stands, holding himself straight and determined, protective. It strikes in a calm and perfect way, _he doesn't know_. _He doesn't know anything_. It's for his benefit that she even deigns to answer Holmes at all. "You turned me down," however, is as close as she can come to describing what happened at the Old Bailey. Shrugging again, "So…"

"And lo and behold, someone turns up and spills all the beans. How utterly convenient. Who is Brooke?" All his sentences run together. Is he trying to intimidate her? If he is, he's got another thing coming. Maybe he's just panicking. That'd be the sensible thing to do.

Kitty's never felt quite so untouchable as she does right now. The article, after all, is already printed.

Her lips start to form the words, 'I don't know'. But that's just instinct. That's base and old. She doesn't need it anymore. Why should she lie? More to the point, why should she speak to his monster at all? But it's too late, he's read what she tried to say. "Oh, come on, Kitty. No one trusts the voice at the end of a telephone." He goes on, but Kitty's a little distracted; Watson has just dropped out of his half of the handcuffs. Flexing his fingers. Naturally; they're sore, stiff, he'd too tightly from the wrist. Naturally. It just _looks_ like he's clenching his fist at her, that's all.

Again, she finds herself thinking of that photographer she used to know, teaching her the Prayer For A Black Eye. Handy hints and tips on making sure a glancing punch leaves a bruise nonetheless.

She only looks back when she hears the word 'Dictaphone' leave Holmes' lips. Does he know what he's doing, when he says that to her? Does he even understand, when her eyes drop, when she remembers, what he left her with? Not just the recorded message, his ever-so-generous _quote_, but all that did to her. Does he know? He must.

She cracks, just a little, just enough to leave a nerve or two exposed and quivering. Very suddenly she knows she's sitting on the edge of the armchair, like a stranger in her own living room, bag at her feet like she's ready to run. It's enough, and Holmes continues in the same sharp vein, not with her full attention. "How do you know that you can trust him, eh? A man turns up with the holy grail in his pockets." She watches him with little more than sadness. "What were his credentials?"

Outside, pressed against the door, Jim lingers a second longer in the rapture of hearing that voice. Those _questions_. He's about to answer all of them. He lets them all struggle, pictures Kitty speechless and floundering…. He could leave them for another bout or two, but that would be cruel, wouldn't it… Oh yes, so very cruel.

He hangs his head, keeps his eyes deliberately down. Like nothing's ever happened or ever could have, breezes in, "Darling, they didn't have any ground coffee so I just got normal-"

'Got normal'. He comes so close to laughing, ruining everything; hasn't 'got normal' been his mission, these last long weeks? He comes so very, very close. And then looks up. He sees Holmes, and recognition. The eyes widen, the back straightening. Animals do that. It's the moment where the brain decides between fight and flight. But Holmes does neither. Freezes. 'Fright', maybe, is the option.

Jim, _Rich_, responds in kind. To do otherwise would be rude. Besides, he can see Watson in the corner of his eye, and that gent is leaning distinctly towards 'fight'. He has to do something. He does it with a little back-step, with an actor's approximation of terror, with one trembling hand raised in defence. The way a man betrayed can see only his Judas, he looks only at Kitty. "You said they wouldn't find me here. You said that I'd be safe here."

"You _are_ safe, Richard." She's standing between them, between Holmes and Watson, tossing her head, utterly fearless or covering up really very well… He's impressed with her, for maybe the first time. "I'm a witness. He wouldn't harm you in front of witnesses."

Ah, bless her; she really does think that's how it works. That any party in this room could be stopped by the idea of _witnesses_. Witness? Jim lives for them. The more the better. If he knew where it was going to happen, he'd be arranging a parade to go by the place where Holmes is going to… Oh, he doesn't dare even think it. _Bloody_ hard to stay Rich when he thinks about that.

"So that's your source?" This from Watson. Jim's first glance at him is brief, wary, unwilling to take his eyes off Sherlock. But the good doctor's getting so _riled_! He steps forward, pointing. Even his lanky mate's keeping a sideways eye on him. There's fun to be had, and it's a good time to sow seeds… Yeah, okay, let Watson talk… "Moriarty is Richard Brooke?"

Oh god, the fade, the crack on his voice. Though he's never tried it, Jim's pretty sure he could live on those noises. It's a thought he's had a few times; that he could go out into the wilderness and eat nothing, drink nothing, except that he would remember those sounds.

Maybe he hangs too long in that beautiful moment. Or maybe he's just doing a really good job of scared-shitless. Kitty feels the need to cut in on the dance. She balks, like she's not standing for it, like the very idea makes her sick, "Of course he's Richard Brooke. There is no Moriarty, there never has been."

And again, it must be stressed, Kitty's not a cruel person. Maybe if Holmes wasn't here to watch it, she wouldn't enjoy it so much. John Watson deserves to know, and she could explain it to him with heart and compassion, except that Holmes is here, and he can watch as everything he's done starts to crumble.

Watson bites, "What are you talking about?" Harsh, yes, but there's a softness in it too, and it breaks Kitty's heart.

"Look him up. Rich Brooke – " And if she'd stop for just one second throwing her bitchy little glances at Holmes and look at the man she's supposed to be defending, she might see a little look break through and pass between them.

_Rich Brooke_, _sexy. Geddit?_

"– An actor Sherlock Holmes _hired_ to be Moriarty."

That's his name. His name, his real proper name, and he hasn't been hearing a lot of it lately. That's his name and he loves it, loves everything it means and stands for, loves it. Loves everything about this moment, the sound of that name of his as the soundtrack to the look on His Highness's face, seeing for the first time the true scope and beauty of it all, oh, dear, sweet Jesus… Forever. Kill him in this moment and he will live forever.

_Yeah,_ he thinks._ Okay. Let's play._ Can he even dream of resisting?

"Doctor Watson," he begins. Even the sound of his voice is a trigger. Watson squares himself to be addressed. Kitty is all but overwhelmed by the urge to get between them, to stop this. She looks past Watson to Rich. Her source, but more than that. She said, after all, that she would protect him. As a matter of fact she's pretty sure she said at one point that he had 'nothing to be afraid of, anymore'. And look at him now; talking from behind both his hands, holding the world at bay. A terse smile on his face, like somebody trying to placate an attack dog, looking like a broken grin. "I know you're a good man," he's saying. Maybe it's even true. "Don't… Don't… Don't hurt me."

Watson snaps, "No, you're Moriarty!" Kitty flinches. Tries to ignore the flicker of pleasure she imagines crossing Holmes' face. She's perfectly wrong, of course. He can see nothing but _Brooke._ "He's Moriarty! We've met, remember? You were going to blow me up!" Poor Rich; for a moment he sinks completely in his own guilt, covering his face to hold off the memory.

To remember it more perfectly, more like. To crush down a giggle. Daft bint; once you make them believe one thing, they'll rework the world to make it all fit. But as the laughter actually escapes him he knows he has to focus, stick with the script. He's still standing in reality; it's so close to matching his fantasy he loses track sometimes. But there's work still to be done. "I'm sorry," he breathes, like begging, "I'm sorry. He paid me. I needed the work. I'm an actor, I was out of work-"

"Sherlock," John says, half-turning, cutting off these gabbling defences. He's turning to the only face in the room he trusts. The only thing is, every other face is telling him not to trust it. "You'd better explain, 'cause I am _not_ getting this."

A prompt and effective answer is required. John could be placated with a few simple words. The correct words, and in that most correct of voices, the seed of doubt could be torn out of the ground and the soil sown with salt that nothing might ever grow again. But Sherlock says nothing. He's lost in his own mind, piecing together the facts he has, speculating on what fills the gaps, composing Moriarty's plan from scraps. And it really is beautiful. It's so close to perfect the flaws are a negligible factor. But the word 'neat' really does stop applying when you find yourself the object of the plot…

Still, John waits. And waits. These seconds are precious, and they fall the wrong way.

"I'll be doing the explaining," Kitty interrupts, dumping papers from her handbag into John's hands. He stares at them blankly, catching only words like a half-heard conversation. _Fake_ and _fraud_ and _invented_. "In print. It's all here. Conclusive proof." She turns to Holmes, presenting him with the fascinated Watson. "You invented James Moriarty, your nemesis-"

Yes, yes, he knows all that. The bulk of it clicked when she said the word 'actor', for God's sake. They keep talking, her and Watson. Meanwhile, _Rich Brooke_ and his terror are proving the perfect excuse for Moriarty to stare right back at him. He's filling out details, so Sherlock looks him over, trying to read any clue, any hint. There is, however, nothing. Of course not. Because this, this whole event, it's all that Moriarty is. There's nothing in the glittering eyes but the glee of validation. The rest is nothing more than greasepaint.

Somewhere on the edge of his awareness, Kitty Reilly says, "And to cap it all, you made up a master villain."

John half-laughs, "Oh, don't be ridiculous."

"Ask him," is her challenge, "He's right here!"

Very briefly, beyond their notice, Moriarty raises his eyebrows, the very touch of a nod; yeah. I'm right here. And everybody who thinks it's ridiculous can ask me, because I'm right here.

Not _quite_ voluntarily, Sherlock lifts a hand to his mouth. He knows what instinct put it there. He tells himself the kind lie that he did it so the words, 'Maybe not for long', would escape him aloud.

John is bawling something about the trial. There's a faint urge to quiet him, somehow, maybe even with comfort, but there's no room for it, no time. And though it's him that addressed her, it's Sherlock Kitty answers. "Yes," she's saying, "And _you_ paid him. Paid him to take the rap."

God, she must have been so easy, so pliable, so very useful.

"Promised you'd rig the jury."

So very gullible. Naturally it's a man like Moriarty, and with his motives, that can find someone so very _perfect_ as Kitty bloody Reilly…

"Not exactly a West End role, but I'm sure the money was good." Both Holmes and Moriarty share a silent groan; she's quoting her own unpublished article. You can hear it on her voice, read it on her voice. That's her _very_ best line, the one she's most proud of. "But not so good he didn't want to sell his story."

…_Beg pardon_?, thinks Rich Brook. No-no-no-no-no, he's not _selling his story_. He's _clearing his conscience_. Subtle difference, Kitty. A subtle difference that makes the not-so-subtle difference between whether the public trust him or decide he's another kiss-and-tell twat and pay no attention to him. 'Selling his story' had better not be in the article and could she _please_ get her hands off him, please? God, he can't even shake her off; she's supposed to be his defender, and if she wants to stand there in solidarity and defence with her hand on his shoulder he has to take it. If 'selling his story' is in the article when it prints, she's got two sorts of dead coming to her…

Again, Watson proves his limited worth, by being a useful distraction. Jim, _Rich_, damn it, he has to start getting that right again… Rich lifts up his two hands, joined as if in prayer. Like a stuck record, like he's got nothing else in the world to say, "I am sorry. I am, I am sorry."

Is there still a seed there? Maybe. Maybe if Jim_, Rich, Christ's sake!, _maybe if he squints and turns his head sideways and is really hopeful, if he claps his hands and believes…

"So, this is the story that you're going to publish?" Yeah, is there a seed there? Is that defensive derision, maybe? If he crosses all his fingers and toes? "The big conclusion of it all, Moriarty is an actor?" John shakes his head, chewing the idea like a wasp. Saying it out loud has brought it home to him just how stupid it all sounds.

Rich, desperate to keep doubt alive in the only human heart in the room, to water and nurture and feed it, points past Holmes, "He knows I am! I have proof!" His voice is shaking. He has to stop it, but trying to just makes it worse. All he can do is pray that repressed laughter really does pass for hysterical tears, in a pinch… "I have proof; show him." Finally, an excuse to push Kitty away. "Can you show them something?"

Watson, more than a little confrontational, "Yeah, show me something."

Kitty goes for her handbag. Watson watches her. While neither of them is looking, Rich slips away and Jim grins, can't help it. And he is proud and overwhelmed and overjoyed to see Holmes smile back. He gets the joke. The answer to the riddle. He gets the joke, after all this time and all this work and now he gets the joke. The red folder goes into Watson's hands. Oh, God, it's too, _too_ funny. Full of jokes. The stupid sunglasses, the stupid CV, the stupid hospital program he'd said yes to before he remembered Molly Hooper watches the bloody thing and had to pull out. Too many jokes to waste on Watson, with his big, serious, collapsing face. He _always_ looks like he's melting, but now he's melting all over Jim's jokes and he can't stand it. "I'm on TV," he says. "I'm on kids' TV. I'm the Storyteller. I'm the Storyteller; it's on DVD." Just one glance, just to confirm that Sherlock remembers their little story not so long ago.

Then, braver, and utterly unable to resist, "Just tell him. It's all coming out now, it's all over."

Kitty looks away from Watson. Rich, God help him, he too terrified to really know what he's saying. Talk like that is almost certain to provoke Holmes. Kitty watches carefully. Sees one arm fold defensively across his body, the other hand a fist and raised near his face, the gritted teeth. She watches, wanting more than ever to tell Rich to just shut up. Now's not really the time for that, though. "Just tell them," he goes on. "Tell them, tell him. It's all over."

It all happens within a moment, but in sequence; Holmes snaps and makes for Rich. Watson follows suit. Kitty can barely squeak, takes her own step forward a second too late. "No!" and Rich scatters, trying for the stairs at his back and only falling. "No, don't you touch me!" Fallen and vulnerable, pointing up as he tries to get back to his feet.

And Holmes is only bellowing, "Stop it! Stop it now!"

Is that all he's got? Because he knows, doesn't he, he just knows… "No, no, don't hurt me." It's a pity to leave them. Jim doesn't want to. But Rich has his feet beneath him again and Rich wants to flee. He flies, on love, pure _love_, on all the glories and beauties of this night, up and across Kitty's bedroom, into the bathroom, locking both doors behind him. The ginger bitch is screaming in his defence, but he'll never have to see her again. Holmes is crying out a platitude and an impossibility; "Don't let him get away." But the window has been opened for him, the way left clear and the gates undone on the fire escape. There's no obstacle, no slowing, not until he's on the ground.

A hand grabs him, pulls him in beneath the metal stairs, as Holmes and Watson both stick their heads out above.

There's breathing near him in the dark. Danielle. She laid the path for him and now she's throwing a heavy yellow anorak at him, saying, "Come on. Seb's got the cab waiting." He puts the anorak on, pulls up the hood. But he's not going the same way she is. He's going the other way, to the end of the street. Danielle dodges streetlights and rushes up to guide him in the other direction. "What are you doing?"

"I want to see them when they leave."

"How about _no_? You need to get away from here, and now."

"I want to see them," he tells her, more definitely, "when they leave."

She puts her hand where Kitty's has so recently been. He takes it by the wrist, above her cuff, hard. Throws her arm and all the rest of her away from him. Walks off the way he always intended to.

Kitty, for her part, couldn't be happier that he's gone. He'll come back, of course he will. She knows that. But she's so glad he got out of here, away from this _psychopath_ and his blind, hopeless disciple. She blocks them from coming back down the stairs. Watson, same as he did on his way up, walks straight through her. But Holmes, when she looks up, when she meets his eyes, stops. Bloody right he does. He knows, now, that Kitty's not to be messed with. When it all comes down, he's going to know she's the one who did it to him.

Kitty's not a cruel person. But she takes an incredible pleasure in that, and _no_ guilt.

And now that she's got his attention, "Do you know what, Sherlock Holmes? I look at you now and I can _read_ you." She has _dreamt_ this. She'll dream it again tonight when he's gone, and tomorrow, when he's gone forever under the weight of his crimes. "And you- _repel_ – me."

He walks away from her then. She'd looked for a moment as if she had something interesting to say, but this is just a waste of time. As he leaves, his brain is running at the same speed hers tried to when she found them in the flat. Coping a lot better with it. Making the right connections.

He breaks into the street, with John at his heels. His first steps are heavy and aimless, storming, as the final act crystallizes for him, turns solid and perfectly clear.

With a heavy coat, and the shadow behind a streetlight, to hide him, Jim watches the revelation, when Holmes stops, when he turns his pale face up to look into the distant sky, his inevitable future.

_Their _inevitable future.

* * *

[A/N - Apologies for length - that scene is six minutes long. Please don't be annoyed at me for ripping off six minutes of dialogue. This scene had been requested by a number of people I like and respect very much. I only hope I've brought enough to it that it's been worth reading.

Hearts,

Sal.]


	5. Chapter 5

Kitty Reilly has a front page exclusive on the Sunday papers. She knows people in her profession who have grafted all their lives, who she freely admits are better journalists than she is, and still have never even gotten close to this. She went to the printers in the depths of last night to watch it flying off the rollers. Paper goes in blank, spooled off huge bales like confetti for God in heaven, is pressed under great black rubber cylinders and comes off covered in words. Her words, on this occasion. She brought a whole bundle of them home. The workers down there seemed to know why, and looked at her with benevolent, appreciative smiles. Everyone's been so bloody _nice_.

Except, of course, around the office. Kitty hears things, whispered in corners or cut off as she walks into the room. Things like 'lucky' and 'jammy bitch'. Things like, 'What'd she have to do to land that?', muttered in voices that aren't implying she had to work hard and investigate and really push herself.

And do you know what? For the first time maybe in her life, Kitty could not give the tiniest shit less _what_ they say. The feeling is incredible. After all these years, it feels like freedom. All week, she's been looking around them all, and she just does not _care_ anymore. When she was a little girl, she didn't want her mother to think she was a tomboy. When she went to school, she didn't want her classmates to think she was a geek. When she went to uni, she didn't want anyone to think she was frigid. Starting work, it was all of that and incompetent too, and all at once. Now, finally, she's free of all that.

As Sunday dawns, Kitty is sitting low in her armchair. Her feet are propped up on her bundle. And yes, maybe fifty papers is self-indulgent, but that doesn't matter. She has a pretty, delicately patterned tea cup and saucer by her side. Despite the fact that it's breakfast time, she is enjoying several delightful, pastel macaroons, pink and green and an incredible sunflower yellow. She lets the light come up naturally into the room, and lies there still. No longer even daydreaming, Kitty's mind just drifts, happily afloat on this most wonderful of mornings, on having everything she wants for just a moment.

Occasionally, very occasionally, just a little wave to rock the boat very slightly, she wonders where Rich is. He never came back. Didn't answer his phone again either. But he hasn't turned up dead anywhere. She's a little sorry, just a little, that she couldn't protect him. More than likely, that's why he's run, why he wouldn't come near her again.

She just wonders where he is. Maybe now that publicity has given him some safety she'll see him again. I mean, he could at _least_ say thank you, couldn't he? She's yet to hear that from him.

At ten o'clock, the phone calls start. In beaming sunlight she lazily picks them up and like a spot of darkness absorbs all the love and light that comes down the phone to her. Her editor, and her mother, her Aunt Liz, family, friends, uni pals, colleagues (though only from the other papers she's worked at in the past, no current ones). They are, as a rule, uniform declarations of praise and pride. It all just washes over her.

Then there's a slightly different phone call. It comes about midday, but she doesn't doubt that the man on the other end of the line has only just gotten to read the papers; his voice is hoarse with hangover, thick with the memory of last night.

"Hello?" she mumbles at first, smiling expectantly, still thinking it's going to be like all the rest.

"Miss Reilly?" he says. "Miss Kitty Reilly? Have I got the right number?"

"Depends," she says. Her back crackles when she tries to sit up, and she's slunk so low that physics won't quite allow it. She folds forward against her knees, just to feel a little more alert. This doesn't sound like the rest. "Who's looking for her?"

"Harold Dunlop, over here at the Post. Read your story."

Harold Dunlop. Kitty knows the name. He's the bloody senior crime staff writer at the biggest tabloid in the country since the News of the World folded, of _course_ she knows the name.

Oh my God, she thinks. Oh my God. Oh my God. If the newsagents opened at 10, given it's a Sunday, and it is (she checks the clock) twelve-twenty-three, it has been two hours and twenty-three minutes since her story reached the public and oh my God, she's being headhunted, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God… "Did you now?" she says, with casual nonchalance and no idea where she manages to dig up casual nonchalance from. "And thought enough of it to find my home number, I see. How'd you manage that, by the way?"

"Details, details… You ought to have that all worked out, though; you're good at details. _Very_ good at details… Listen to me, Miss Reilly, I'm suffering really rather badly this morning. Self-inflicted of course, but I just wanted you to know, I may call you back sometime this week and ask you to meet me for a quiet, private lunch, alright?"

She tries to sound more like she's rolling her eyes than shaking all over. You can, I wager, guess which one is the truth. "Well, thank you very much for the advance warning."

"I'm looking forward to calling you back, Miss Reilly."

She puts the phone down, maintains her shocked composure for a moment, then throws back her head and laughs like a teenager, half-screaming at the ceiling until her upstairs neighbour slams his heel to the floor a few times. After that she flops back in her chair and giggles, grinning, rapt with it all.

Kitty holds up her joined hands like a praying nun and says to no one who would be listening to her, "You lying bastard, bless your empty little heart! Thank you, Sherlock Holmes. Bless you."

Somewhere after that, in that same flippant high, Kitty drifts off. Staying up to go to the printers, the sugar crash, the lack of breakfast, the caffeine wearing off, she leaves half a cigarette just burning in the ashtray and her eyes slowly close. Her dreams are the same colours as the macaroons. Pastel pink and pistachio green and glorious, basking, sunshine yellow. She's floating on the Dead Sea. She did it once when she was young, on a family holiday she hardly remembers. But she remembers it now, and the dead sea is sugary, pistachio green. The sky is sunshine yellow, because the sun is shining. And across it flies a pastel pink Icarus, who she _could_ warn, but she doesn't. His wings melt and he plunges, and hits the water not with a splash, but with the ringing of urgent bells.

Her bloody phone again, waiting her out of it. That's what the bells were.

"Yes?" she sighs this time.

"Kitty." First she recognizes the rush and pop of a long distance call, like talking in a tunnel. Then another sort of distance. She can't quite put her finger on it at first. Then, finally, out of her sleepy brain, she recognizes the voice.

"Miss Kerr?" Gracie. Rich Brooke's keeper. The first source. All these little factors drop into place in Kitty's head, very quickly, and wake her up. Finally, maybe she'll get her thank you out of Rich. Much as she would have liked to snooze on a little, there are definitely worse things to wake up to. "Where are you?" she asks. Then, more important, "How's Rich?"

"That's what I called to tell you." Kitty straightens, smiling, waiting. But what follows is not what she was expecting. "Richard Brooke is dead."

"…I beg your pardon."

"And Holmes too, any minute now. If you're fast you'll be the first on the scene."

Now the first question becomes important again. "You sound very far away."

"Do I? I suppose that's one way of putting it."

"No, I mean, we don't have the best connection."

"Oh. Yes, well, for my sins and my stupidity, I am in Paris." She doesn't sound right. The voice is perfect, yes, absolutely fine, but there's something different in the _way_ she talks. A hard edge, a brutality unbecoming of a secretary. "The bodies," either the line or the voice cracks, "you will find at St Bart's Hospital."

The line dies.

There are ways to waste time. Kitty could try and call her back, ask for more details. She could call her editor and give this to him, or call Harold Dunlop and start her bargaining.

But Kitty's learned a lot in these past weeks. She simply stands up, ignoring the aches of her long apathy, in last night's grubby clothes and grabs her bag on her way to the door. In the car along the way she calls that pap photographer, the one who gave her all those helpful hints. Asks him if he wants to stop snapping up the skirts of the rich and wasted, give himself a chance at climbing the ladders.

As it turns out, he gets there before Kitty. He gets a picture that will go on to be iconic, of Holmes standing on the edge of the building. He gets a picture of the falling that the papers are all too coy to use, but he sells it to the Americans and they lap it up.

Kitty arrives just as he's getting pictures of John Watson being torn away from the body. Pure tabloid gold. As Kerr promised, she's the first one there. She gets the quotes from the eyewitnesses before the police can arrive to disperse them. She gets names and numbers, people who are willing to let her get in touch again. She sees the ideal shot, the broken mobile phone on the pavement next to a spatter of blood just small enough to be tasteful, and makes sure there's a picture taken of it before the phone goes as evidence.

Then, when the police arrive and they are moved along, Kitty sneaks herself and her photographer into the hospital at the ambulance bay and heads for the roof, to investigate the rumours of 'gunshot' she heard running through the crowd. She hasn't seen anybody else heading for the roof either.

She liked Rich, of course she did. And not just because he was giving her his story. He was just a nice person to have around. But the words 'discovered the body' get stuck in her head (they are pastel pink words) and she can't get rid of them. Isn't sure she wants to.

And well, they discover the _blood_ certainly. The pool is uniform and glossy, ragged on only one edge where his head must have landed in it.

"Must've took the body down to the morgue," her photographer friend mutters. "I wouldn't worry about it. I'd say we've got more than enough here."

Kitty nods, but she can't take her eyes off the blood. There's something wrong about it. It bothers her all day thereafter, while she's writing up tomorrow's story. All the other papers have to catch up what she exposed today and then add this on. Kitty can afford to spend a bit more time on it. Nobody knows this case like she does. Her editor told her that. She, he said, is what's going to make these pieces really special. She had the inside line.

And Kitty is comfortable with that.

But the blood, the blood, there's something wrong about the blood.

It's only that evening, when an official verdict of suicide is released for both the corpses involved, that it strikes her. She calls up the camera again. "Send me the picture you took of the roof." He does. Mere seconds later, it's on her computer, and she pulls in close on the dark, totally uniform, totally liquid pool. "…If you were going to shoot yourself-"

"In the head," he says, without hesitation. "It's the only sure way. Besides, that's what it says on the preliminary coroner's report."

"You have that?"

"I know someone who does."

"Get that for me. But…" But if you shot yourself in the head, surely there would be more than blood on the concrete. Kitty doesn't like to imagine too vividly, but something darker than blood, and thicker, something more viscous, surely? Pieces. And right there at the hospital, where both bodies could be spirited away directly to the morgue… Surely there would be more than blood on the concrete.

But it makes sense. Rich topped himself. Holmes, realizing that left him no recourse, did the decent thing. Or Holmes tries to blackmail Rich into staying Moriarty, saying all of this was another elaborate game, and Rich's suicide was his only option. The only sure way. Yeah. It all makes so much sense if you don't question it too much.

Those pictures of Holmes, the ones no one will by, his skull is still awfully round for a man who just took a header down all those storeys, isn't it?

But it already makes sense. Why should Kitty force deeper and deeper conspiracy on it? She thinks of Rich in her flat. She thinks of Harold Dunlop at the Post. She thinks of Leon Coxcroft, and leaving him behind at his nowhere, tabloid newsdesk.

"But what?" her snapper prompts.

"Nothing," Kitty tells him. "Never mind. Thanks anyway, and get me that report." She hangs up, and goes back to writing tomorrow's front page.


End file.
